Bittersweet Christmas Countdown #5
During my Christmas countdown, I will focus on 5 slightly darker takes on the Festive season. Don’t expect Slade, snowmen and tinsel, more like Infanticide, despair, belief, hope, sacrifice and ultimately salvation. These are truly bittersweet Christmas presents. Each will focus on a significant piece of Christmas media, seeking to unpack it and see if there are lessons for us to extract. Today we will be examining George Seaton’s 1947 masterpiece Miracle on 34th Street. Please don’t waste your time on the more recent remake.
I finally caught up with this movie 5 years ago in an Emirates cattle class cabin. I remember watching it glossy eyed as the waves of emotion and significance washed over me with the power of the Indian ocean breakers five miles down. For those of you who aren’t acquainted with ‘Miracle’, the central theme amongst many sub plots is whether a gentleman called Kris Kringle is, as he claims the real Santa Claus as well as playing the role in Macy’s
Feminist Forerunner
Before we look at the more esoteric aspects of the movie, it’s worth calling out how ahead of the times it was. It’s the end of the second world war, the beginning of the cold war and America is feeling slightly out of sorts. Against this backdrop, we’re given Maureen O’Hara’s Doris Walker — single mother and divorcee super women! But we’re not done yet — she also excels at a senior marketing role for good measure.
Juicy Juxtapositions
Doris has installed her own rational world view into daughter Susan and is adamant that “I don’t believe in filling her mind with fantasies” surely this confident and powerful women will continue to ride the coat tails of rationalism which is clearly part of her winning formula?
Elegant film craft always sets us up for improbable counter punches and juicy juxtapositions and ‘miracle’ delivers a sleigh load of them including challenges to Doris’s world view which culminate in the warm and fuzzy supernatural ending.
Before that we have many more delicious incongruencies with the American dream. Firstly Alfred the Macy’s janitor has a pop at capitalism:-
“Yeah, there’s a lot of bad ‘isms’ floating ’ around this world, but one of the worst is commercialism. Make a buck, make a buck. Even in Brooklyn it’s the same — don’t care what Christmas stands for, just make a buck, make a buck.”
Then our beloved protagonist Kris Kringle uproots the whole ethos of blood thirsty adversarial capitalism by suggesting shoppers go to an arch rival — the reciprocity that this generates eventually triggers a rapprochement with both Firms winning.
“I believe… I believe… It’s silly, but I believe!” — Susan Walker
These entrees although scrumptious can never prepare us for the richness of the main course and desert. Santa is real baby and don’t just take Susan’s words for it.
Just think about it. Why do your kids on sussing the ‘fabrication’ immediately enrol in it? Yeah, sure a bit of self interest at first . Maybe they also feel the magic. Then when we become parents; deception has been fully transmuted into the desire to create magical moments. Through Santa clause, we re-discover our own sense of wonder and the need for magic and faith in our own lives. There is also a powerful lesson in wanting to create awe and wonder for others. The material gifts are almost secondary.
In the movie we have legal arguments about whether Father Christmas is real — I think the evidence should be viewed from a different vista. Santa Clause is a thought form created by every parent and child — and driven partially by the afore mentioned need for magic in our lives. Every time you lay out a mince pie, feel our heart moved by the wonder on our children’s faces, the spirit of Christmas gets bigger and bigger.
When Edmond Gwenn picked up his richly deserved Academy award for his portrayal of Kris Kringle, I don’t think that his tongue was fully in his cheek when he said “There really is a Santa clause!”
You’d better believe it.
